Posts Tagged ‘Dee Ann Palmer’

Folks, it is my pleasure to welcome author Dee Ann Palmer to the Elfyverse. She has two short stories in the Exquisite Christmas anthology, one being “Snowfall,” the other being “A Night to Remember.” Both are fun and heartwarming short stories that left me with a smile on my face…and maybe if I were a better singer, I might’ve even had a song in my heart, too.

Note that Dee Ann featured my guest blog earlier this week at both her website and her blog, something I truly appreciated.

So, take it away, Dee Ann!

THE MOUNTAINS, A BLIZZARD, AND A SKI RESORT FOR EXQUISITE CHRISTMAS

Thirteen years ago, I completed my first romance novel in a writer’s workshop in the California mountains. Later, as a Public Health Nurse, I visited pregnant and parenting teens in those same mountains, becoming aware of how eagerly young men awaited the first snowfall because it meant they would have jobs. I’ve also been an avid follower of the Winter Olympics, and, trained in emergency medicine, interested in ski patrollers.

With those experiences in mind, it’s no wonder I selected the winter settings I did for my romances— “A Night to Remember” and “Snowfall.”

Here’s the opening to “A Night to Remember:”

It was the worst Christmas Eve Marlee had ever lived through. Providing she did live through it, she thought. People who longed for a white Christmas obviously didn’t expect it to come with a power outage and a blizzard like she was creeping along in in her old Nissan.

Squinting to see, she switched the heat to the front and rear windshields. If she didn’t reach her house soon, the wipers wouldn’t be able to cut through the ice forming there. The snow had thickened and the temperature had dropped in the last thirty minutes.

“You had to have a tree. Going out in a blizzard to get that puny thing in the backseat masquerading as a Christmas tree was moronic,” she scolded herself…

From “Snowfall:”

As a senior ski patroller, Riley’s job is to check the safety of the ski runs.

Now, from her spot on the lift, a flash of red from the corner of her vision drew her gaze upward. A man in ski clothes and helmet stood at the top of the closed double black diamond run named Satan’s Domain, poised as if waiting for a starter to yell “Go!” He mimicked breaking through a gate, pushed hard with his poles, and, knees bent, leaned in to set a blistering competitor’s pace down the fall line.

“Hey, you!” Riley screamed, waving a pole as her anger flared.

Whoever he was, he had no right to be there. He must’ve hopped on the lift while she was handling heat and coffee. He was trespassing, but the resort would be liable if he was injured. She clicked on her radio and called down to security to see if he’d arrived at the bottom in one piece. No answer.

The skier seemed to know what he was doing, but she had to be sure he wasn’t hurt. That extremely difficult piste, or run, hadn’t been groomed…

In every age, the heart loves, and Dee Ann Palmer’s twenty-seven published romances over the past years have reflected those eras in contemporary, historic and fantasy tales. Palmer is a member of Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America’s PAN group. She’s married to her college sweetheart, and they live in beautiful southern California in easy reach of mountains, desert and beaches.